“Sorry you went through that,” he says softly.
“She was my favorite aunt,” I continue.“And then she just ...disappeared.Mom eventually got a settlement from the divorce and handled the bills.But maybe Lina left because she couldn’t handle seeing someone my age sick.Maybe it brought everything back.”
A breath shakes loose from me.
“She must’ve loved him so much.And maybe I reminded her of what she couldn’t have.”
“She did love him,” he says.“You can read it.You feel it in every line.It moves through the page like music.”
I close my eyes.
I press the letter to my chest, tears slipping down my jaw, and breathe—a slow, uneven effort—trying to make room for the girl Lina once was, for the boy she lost, and for the version of myself finally understanding what she carried in silence.
And then my mind drifts—to Sam.
To our last real conversation.The raised voices.Both of us worn down.Him promising he’d be home before midnight.Me hovering too much, him needing space, maybe a break.
Then the call.The way the words “car accident” hung between us, turning everything inside me into fog.
We never wrote letters—never had time for that kind of devotion.
Lina had pages marked with ink and promises.
She had something to hold.
I don’t.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I reach for another envelope.
This one is hers.October 1967.
The paper is thinner, worn at the fold.There’s a faint smudge near the top corner—like someone touched it with damp fingers years ago.
Alec’s hand, still near mine, twitches again.
I look at him.
He doesn’t move away.
I unfold the letter.
ChapterTwenty-One
October 17th, 1967
Tommy,
Your mom mentionedat church that we shouldn’t call you that anymore.
“He’s a soldier now,” she said.“You should be more serious.”
So naturally, I call you Tommy as often as possible—just never in front of her.
You left in August, and somehow it’s still August inside me.
School started last month, the leaves are turning, the grocery store already has Halloween decorations in the windows ...and yet everything feels like the wrong month.Like time decided to pause on the day you boarded that bus.
You wrote that the days blur together over there.They do here too, but for different reasons.Every day feels like waiting.Doing what they expect of me at school, at home, pretending the world hasn’t tilted.I nod through conversations that don’t matter, and underneath it all is this quiet hum of when the mail truck will come?
